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May 24, 2005

Last night I sent text messages back and forth to a friend sitting in a movie theatre in Paris while I played poker online and watched TV. Most of the people I know have a laptop nearby while watching TV. Keeping up with friends via IM, e-mail or playing online games...there's always something else to do while watching shows that are, for the most part, fairly predictable.

We're becoming good multitaskers, and Grant McCracken looks at some of the implications as he ponders the sharp drop in attendance at the movies.

Carisa Bianchi, chief strategist for TBWA/Chiat Day, on the importance of cultural relevance for branding.

iMedia: A brand used to be known as a promise, but going forward you said it will be known as a relationship. How can marketers form this relationship?

Bianchi: A brand is not just a product on a shelf. A brand is constantly changing and communicating, so it needs to think of itself as a person, not an object. It has to continuously prove its worth to people and nurture the relationship. It's no coincidence that Pan Am Airlines went out of business – the brand never changed to meet the culture's needs, whereas you look at a brand like Apple, whose customers share their experiences and have made it a cultural phenomenon. Apple has kept its customers' interest over decades by maintaining the strategy to provide "creative tools for creative minds." This is opposite from Microsoft's product-focused strategy. Apple sells benefits, Microsoft sells technology.

Ok, not many brands can hit the cultural jackpot like Apple, but being tuned in to, nurturing, supporting, and responding to the culture in which a brand lives and breaths is critical. On this website, by far the most popular google search term that refers people to the site is "NIKE GINGA", another great example of cultural relevance.

(had to add this to the post, from Grant McCracken's site, on the challenges brands face adapting to contemporary culture). (emphasis added)

Living as we do in a dynamic world, consumers are more various and more changeable than before. Creating current meanings requires deep knowledge of the culture and constant adjustment to its changing trends. The best brands are a little like sailing ships. They have the deep ballast of long standing meaning, the deck cargo of recent meanings, and tall sails that must be repositioned often to adjust to constantly, sometimes whimsically, changing consumer taste and preference.

Thanks to Lew at MCSaatchi for the link to a neat article on the "law of magnetism" that governs fashion and trends. An interesting theory from the scientists: imitation is "deeply rooted in our biology as a survival strategy", and we follow those who seem to know more than we know.

May 17, 2005

Whatever you choose to call it, the expansion of consumer tastes and styles in (and even more amazingly between) categories ranging from music, books, fashion, food, cars and beyond is quickly changing the rules for branding, marketing and economics. Many assumptions about consumer behaviours are dissolving before our eyes. One recent study paints a picture of the consumer of 2020: more income, less time, more choices and new spending patterns will make it tricky to understand purchasing decisions that fluctuate according to category or even time of day. The study argues that getting closer to consumers will be key, not only in understanding the kinds of experiences customers crave, but also in harnessing customer insight in the process of innovation itself. For marketers, not being tuned into changing consumer patterns will make an increasingly difficult job all that much harder.

May 04, 2005

Memes, or "viruses of the mind", provide a very helpful framework for restoring some key notions in marketing that have been diluted by misuse of the term "brand". Among other crimes:

Fundamentally we neglected the fact that brands do not belong to us and do not reside in the HQ’s of organizations but rather exist only in the minds of consumers. This has lead to a number of assumptions that are counter-productive and have effectively neutered the power of the brand.

Memes encourage us to think in terms of the inherent essence of various products and the fact that, ultimately, their self-replicating nature cannot be controlled by marketers. Products are ideas launched into the world of minds, Mr. Huntington argues, and the powerful ones spread naturally by virtue of their strength.

Any idea, belief or attitude is a meme. Consequently the halo of such attributes that we are used to calling the brand is essentially a meme. All products, services or organisations therefore have memes with some stronger than others and therefore better at transmission, replication and defence from competitive memes.

The key to success for any product is to launch into the world - and remember it is purely a world of minds - a powerful meme about itself. The initial catalyst may well be advertising but the measure of its power is that it becomes in large part self replicating, that consumers spread and augment it themselves.

I think these thoughts and the "meme" meme really help us to think clearly about everything from positioning, product innovation, authenticity, and word-of-mouth. From one of the articles linked below, designer Shepard Fairey echoes some of these principles:

In a world in which there are so many kinds of media, insinuating one's brand name into people's everyday lives via word of mouth has become an increasingly powerful force. In a world in which technology has become such an invasive presence and anonymity is so easy, word of mouth and "real" interaction are welcome changes. As Fairey put it, "The best campaigns are ones where people see it and they ask people about it. And it starts a chain reaction."

It will be interesting to see Project 2050's work, it looks like they have all the right elements in place to produce intelligent, culturally relevant communications. Designer Shepard Fairey's cult-like status is a big boost, check out this article where he gives his views on street marketing and authenticity.

In order for a brand to exist and survive and be relevant you must exist in multiple space. It doesn't mean that you still don't have to have a core competency. You have to really truly be a lifestyle brand. You have to exist in our culture on all levels. Music, movies, video games, cellphones, clothing.